Formerly the non-partisan watchdog of the 2010 US Census, and currently an opinion blog that covers all things political, media, foreign policy, globalization, and culture…but sometimes returning to its census/demographics roots.

Thanks to Michael Cook of the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office, I was able to obtain the most up-to-date data on EEO complaints. I have been waiting for the Census Bureau to get me this data for a long time now, and I’m glad that it’s here. As you will see, the number of complaints related to the decennial census is quite large. If you filed a complaint, please comment here about how the process has turned out for you and what your experience has been like:

With hundreds of thousands of Americans working for the 2010 Census, there are sure to be some individuals who feel as if they were improperly treated by their employer. Ttoday, MyTwoCensus.com will take a look at the Equal Employment Opportunity Data provided by the Census Bureau.

(Note: We only have data available for the first quarter of 2010, and NRFU operations didn’t begin until the second quarter. As the second quarter ended yesterday, we hope that this information will soon be available.)

During the past few months, MyTwoCensus.com has received dozens hundreds of e-mails from individuals who feel that they have been mistreated or discriminated against during their time as Census Bureau employees.

(Please feel free to share your stories in the comments section.)

MyTwoCensus has also heard from multiple sources that LCOs (local census offices) have done everything in their power to suppress individuals who wish to file complaints with the EEO and prevent them from filing such complaints, thus skewing the data. Given the large number of people who participated in Address Canvassing operations in 2009, MyTwoCensus is actually surprised how few complaints there have been. What disturbs me most is how few claims are actually found to be valid:

Though the Census Bureau’s Associate Director for Communications (and Spin Doctor in Residence) Steve Jost denied problems with the Census Bureau’s payroll system in comments he posted on this blog, Ryla, a firm contracted by the government to handle telephone complaints and questions about Census Bureau operations, has now acknowledged its own payroll problems for its employees. This is a true victory for MyTwoCensus.com and its loyal readers, as this issue likely would not have received the attention it deserves without your assistance. Let’s now hope that the Census Bureau follows suit in addressing payroll problems that have been widely reported by this site’s readers. Thanks to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the following:

Kennesaw-based Ryla Inc. is working to improve its pay processes after some of the 1,300 census workers the company employs complained they were not getting checks on time or were shorted work hours.

Ryla spokeswoman Karen Clay said the pay problems have occurred in spurts and the company is paying employees as quickly as its officials are notified. She did not know the exact number of people affected, but said it is small.

“There were some hiccups in our own processing in payroll,” Clay said, declining to be more specific. “Any payroll discrepancies are actively being worked on.”

Ryla, operator of one of Georgia’s biggest call centers, announced in February it was hiring the workers to handle calls for the 2010 Census. Pay is roughly $12-$15 an hour.

Another issue for workers has been pay stubs issued for $0. Clay said workers with those checks are employed by temporary agencies. Ryla pays the temp agencies, which then pay the workers.

RACINE – A U.S. Census Bureau worker has accused Racine police of harassing him while he was working last week and said he has filed a complaint.

Alexander Avila, 21, of Racine, was out last Friday knocking on doors for the census when police in an undercover car stopped him to ask what he was doing, he said. They then started harassing him about his brother who has warrants out for his arrest, he said. They ended up giving him three tickets for traffic violations, which he said were not justified.

I felt scared, intimidated, threatened and racially profiled,” said the written complaint that Avila said he filed Monday with the police department.

Racine Police Chief Kurt Wahlen said his department will be fully investigating the complaint.

But Wahlen said, “We have a right to ask about his brother.”

His brother, Steve Avila II, has nine warrants out for his arrest for traffic violations, Wahlen said.

Avila said once he told police he didn’t know anything about his brother they should have let him continue with his job.

I was treated unfairly,” he said to The Journal Times Monday.

Representatives from the U.S. Census Bureau confirmed Alexander Avila works for the Census and Muriel Jackson, spokeswoman for the bureau, said “we will look into this.”

Avila’s grandmother, Maria Morales, coordinator for Voces de la Frontera in Racine, reported the incident to the Journal Times and Avila confirmed it. Both are U.S. citizens, they said.

Voces de la Frontera is a Wisconsin nonprofit that works to help low-wage and immigrant workers.

Morales has been involved with events to address racial profiling and police harassment and she couldn’t believe now it happened to her grandson.

Police stopped Avila when he started on his route on the 1100 block of Erie Street, he said.

When police stopped him they asked him what he was doing and he told them he was working going door to door trying to collect information for the 2010 Census and showed them his identification, he said. They then questioned the validity of his identification and then when they saw his name they started asking about his brother. He told them he did not know where his brother is and does not talk to him. But one of the officers accused him of lying , Avila said . Then the officer told him that he had seen him driving and said he failed to signal when he turned at State Street, Avila added. They also told him he was driving suspiciously, Avila said in his complaint. He told officers he has a binder full of addresses for people he has to contact and he said he was having trouble finding some of the addresses.

Then police accused him of reading the binder while he was driving, but he said he was not reading while he was driving.

I knew the address and street numbers but … I just had a difficult time finding them,” he said in the complaint.

He ended up receiving three tickets for failure to signal, inattentive driving and obstruction of vision because he had two small necklaces hanging from his rearview mirror, he said.

He said he filed the complaint because he was treated unfairly and didn’t want it to go unreported.

I just want them to know they cannot go around and harass someone for no reason,” Avila said. “I don’t want to be afraid.”

In recent days, I have received many complaints from Census Bureau employees about the poor quality of their managers. I encourage people with problems to write up their stories and I will publish them here. The following document does not represent the opinions of Stephen Robert Morse or MyTwoCensus.com, but rather the female manager from California who sent me this piece. Inside you will see her opinions about fraud and abuse by Census Bureau management as well as discriminatory treatment of staff and information about the process of filing complaints:

Three female managers in the Santa Maria, CA, Local Census Office, Los Angeles Region filed EEO complaints against our Area Manager, Araceli Barcelo and Assistant Regional Census Center Manager, Jeff Enos. Enos had been our Area Manager and was promoted to ARCM. Barcelo had been a Regional Tech for Enos and was promoted to Area Manager. Those in our office who filed complaints include the Assistant Manager Administration, the Assistant Manager Technology and me, the Local Census Office Manager. We filed complaints because Araceli Barcelo and Jeff Enos rehired a man (I won’t name him as he is also part of our complaint and not a manager) who had abused and sexually harassed women in our office. Both Area Manager Barcelo and ARCM Enos knew about this man’s behavior and never did anything to stop it. The behavior was well documented and ARCM Enos had the documentation. There was a very volatile incident in our office where this man yelled, made an inappropriate comment and a menacing gesture directed at our AMT. This happened while we were on a teleconference with Jeff Enos. This man also “cussed out” Jeff Enos and Enos did nothing. Later Enos called me and told me to handle the situation with this man because “he did not like to do those types of things”. The next day, the man resigned while I was writing him up. Jeff Enos should have disciplined this man. The Local Census Office Manager does not hire, fire or discipline managers. That is the responsibility of the Area Manager.

After the three of us, female managers, learned this man had been rehired during a teleconference with Araceli Barcelo, we filed EEO complaints. We filed complaints because management had not dealt with this man’s illegal and abusive behavior, had rehired him and, then, given him a promotion as a Regional Tech in the area Araceli Barcelo supervises. The women in our office were told this man was to not come to our office. However, as a Regional Tech, he now had access to our work and all our electronic files. He could also show up at our door and gain entrance. We filed because we feared he would harm us. The statement from management that this man would not come to our office shows they knew he had done something wrong in our office.

This man was originally hired as a Group Quarters Supervisor in one of the Central Valley Offices about three hours from Santa Maria. To do this, Barcelo needed to have used a fake address, a new geo coding, as office staff can only be hired from the local area. This man lives in Santa Maria. Staff from our office sees him at the local gym quite regularly. Barcelo had fired the LCOM and the Assistant Manager of Administration from one of the Central Valley offices for allowing the Administrative Assistant to use a fake address, her sister’s address so she could move with the LCOM to one of the new offices. Why hasn’t Barcelo been fired for doing the same thing?

Araceli Barcelo with the direction of Jeff Enos has fired numerous managers in her area. She uses her Regional Techs as spies. Barcelo uses these spies to get information so Barcelo can build documentation on the managers. While some of these managers may have been fired for performance issue, the majority have not. Some of the managers have quit because they couldn’t deal with Barcelo’s harassing behavior, her firing of their staff and taking over the office to put pressure on the LCOM to quit or to find something to use against them. After one LCOM quit, he contacted his Congressional Rep to complain about all the firings and a delegation from the Congressional Office went to L.A. to meet with James Christy, Regional Director. However, the firings continue. Some of these managers had been with the 2010 Census since the offices opened in 2008. The cost of hiring, training, firing, hiring a replacement and retraining is staggering and a huge waste of taxpayer money. But, then again, as many reports have stated, the Census Bureau has wasted enormous amounts of money. Nothing is done about Barcelo and her behavior as they don’t want to disrupt the operations.

If you complain about Barcelo or Enos or anything Barcelo does, you are subjected to retaliation. All of us who have filed against her have received the brunt of her retaliatory behavior. Some of us have been fired. I have been harassed by her every day since I complained about her. She calls us and makes snide, abusive and insulting remarks. She treats us like we, in the field offices are the enemies instead of helping us with the operations. She has made her Regional Techs scour everything in our office to build documentation on us. They looked at all our time sheets to find errors and, I was written up for it. She had one of her Regional Techs, the hatchet man, go through every selection certificate we have handled since the office opened to find mistakes. He is the hatchet man because Barcelo uses him to find things so she can fire. Our Administration Department, by this time, had hired over 2,000 employees and was handling about 300 payroll documents a day. Given the volume and speed of these transactions, since they are all on strict timelines, there will be mistakes. Management claimed all offices were being audited. This was a lie. Barcelo conducted sham superficial audits of her other offices. She used another RT to audit the work he had done when he was the Assistant Manager of Administration. None of the offices in her area or offices reporting to other Area Managers received the depth of review or covered the timeframe audited in our office. Some of the other offices were not audited. This was pure retaliation on the part of Barcelo and Enos. Regional Director, James Christy and Deputy Director know about all of this as we have sent our complaints to them. They turn a “deaf ear” as they don’t want to “disrupt the operations”. Barcelo continues her abusive retaliatory behavior.

We filed our informal EEO complaints and the EEO Counselor contacted us within a week. She tried to resolve the complaints but, of course, management refused to settle claiming they had done nothing wrong. What we sought was to have management deal with this man who they rehired as they should have done originally, to have Barcelo and Enos disciplined for not dealing with this man’s behavior and for rehiring him with full knowledge of his behavior and to have our office moved from the chain of command of Barcelo and Enos as we knew they would retaliate. Retaliate, they did.

We filed our formal complaints with the Decennial Office of Civil Rights, Kathryn H. Anderson, Deputy Director for Decennial Operations Office of Civil Rights, Washington, DC. This was several weeks ago. We received notice from DD Anderson that our complaints had been received but, no decision as to whether our complaints had been accepted for processing or whether an investigator would contact us.

Last week, an LCOM from one of the Central Valley Offices called me. This LCOM and another manager from her office had also filed complaints but, were told by an EEO Counselor that the Decennial Office of Civil Rights is delaying processing the formal complaints so the Census Bureau can finish the operations. None of our complaints have been processed. This LCOM told me complainants are now filing with the Office of the Inspector General so that someone will do something to stop Barcelo’s behavior.

There is a statutory timeline for agencies to process complaints, 180 days. When a federal agency/department/bureau stalls processing formal complaints, they can say they won’t be able to investigate the complaint within the 180 day and pass the complaint on to the EEOC. The Office of Civil Rights, then, never investigates the complaints. This discourages complainants, they give up or they don’t want to deal with another process, EEOC. This creates what is called a “chilling effect” on complainants. The “chilling effect” has been used in the past by employers as a way to avoid having to deal with complaints and avoid correcting their illegal practices. By stalling, the census operations will finish, the responsible management officials will be gone and documents will be destroyed. And we know the Census Bureau is known for shredding and destroying documents and materials. Also, by stalling processing and investigation of complaints, the Office of Civil Rights is giving benefit to management. The OCR is to be an impartial finder of fact. Giving management a benefit and not giving complainants their statutory rights makes the office biased toward management. The only “right” the temporary decennial census employees have is civil rights. Completing the Census does not trump civil rights laws.

By not conducting timely investigations of EEO complaints, the Census Bureau is giving license to managers to continue to engage in discriminatory/harassing and abusive behavior. The managers see no consequences for their behavior and see EEO as a joke. Araceli Barcelo has been quoted as saying: “I have so many EEO complaints filed against me but, I still sleep at night.”